


How Traveling with a Friend Ruined Traveling but I Would Do It Again In a Heartbeat

by Maedelmae



Category: Original Work
Genre: Personal essay - Freeform, Real Life Events, narrative essay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:26:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27647468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maedelmae/pseuds/Maedelmae
Summary: In the summer of 2019 I went on a road trip with a friend and her mother across the United States to Chicago and then New York. I didn't know my friends family, and I hadn't been that close with my friend, but I went anyway and wrote about the experience recently for class.





	How Traveling with a Friend Ruined Traveling but I Would Do It Again In a Heartbeat

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, this is an original work (actually its an essay) that I had to write recently for class and only just realized a couple months later that I could post it here--which is why I'm doing so. I've changed some of the names to protect my friend's identity, but other than that all of the content of this essay are true.
> 
> I'm writing another essay about a short story written by Ursula Le Guin that I might post--in fact, I might be posting a few of my essays here just because I think its a good opportunity to have others read the writing that I do in my real life rather than for fandoms. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for clicking on this, I'm actually in love with you. Don't be afraid to check out my other works. Have a wonderful day and stay safe :8)

Traveling is a very special thing to me. Growing up without money, vacations were few and far between. Most notable was the trip my family made post-divorce to Padre Island in Corpus Christi Texas where the weather was poor, the jellyfish were many, and the tent was abandoned in favor of our small car. The trip ended two days before intended and my newly single mother made it up to us by taking us to a movie with the last money we had. 

Years later, our family went on a cross country road trip through the midwest to California and back. This was remarkably better than our previous trip—we camped, stayed in hostels, and shared new experiences. With a good trip, a bad trip, and the impression that going on a trip was very expensive business under my belt, I had not in my wildest dreams imagined that the trip I had joked about with my friend would be made into a reality. Jumping into the chance to go somewhere new for the first time in five years, I was met with foreign cultures, sickness, resentment, and guilt. 

I do not remember how it had started, but my friend, Claire, and I had been talking about where we would be looking to enroll for college during our junior year of high school. We had both expressed interest in colleges located very close to one another in Chicago, and were talking about traveling to Chicago during the summer for a college tour of the two. There was no doubt in my mind that this was wishful thinking, and that no matter how much we desired to go, it would not become a possibility. We were both sixteen and would not be equipped with the ability to travel alone for an entire week across the country with the express intention of touring colleges. So, when Claire told me her mother would be willing to not only accompany us on our trip, but also to pay for it, I was shocked. My family had money, but not enough for a vacation like we had planned. The trip was to take place in August before our senior year. We were to drive to Chicago, tour colleges and spend three days there, before going to the airport and flying to New York so we could visit Claire’s brother who was attending college there, and then fly back to Chicago to drive home a few days later. I only had to buy the plane ticket and everything else was taken care of. 

The drive to Chicago was miserable. My car sickness had forced me to sleep the entire drive, and when I wasn’t sleeping, I was glaring blearily out of the back seat window hoping for some reprieve from the barrage of nausea I was facing. We stopped in St. Louis for lunch and I could barely stomach the rich and creamy carbonara I had ordered. It went in a to-go box, we left, and the guilt began. The restaurant we had gone to was not cheap and the wasted food sat next to me in the box in the car, mocking me for my inability to stomach its contents. When we arrived, it was dark and I had been tired and irritable. I had only just learned Claire’s mom’s name that morning and I was nowhere near comfortable enough with Claire to share how I was feeling. 

The next few days were better; we toured the colleges of our dreams, I got my portfolio accepted, and I was on my way to being a fully-fledged college student who lived in Chicago. We walked around, saw the sights, laughed, ate, slept in uncomfortably starched hotel beds, and then we went to New York. 

We spent more time in New York than we did in Chicago and so my experiences in New York stuck to my brain in ways our stay in Chicago had not. The place we ubered to was a very small, very old brickstone in the heart of Harlem. All throughout the trip, my friend and her mom had been joking around about the fact that they were Filipino and I clearly was not, but my Native American culture was similar enough that we had shared habits (mostly regarding the odd habits of keeping yogurt containers and having loud family members) and could joke around—but I did not fit in and this was clear when we visited CLaire’s family friend’s house. Anxious around people I did not know, and in a completely new environment I mostly stayed to myself. Conversations were held largely in Tagalog and I felt very much placed to the side—though I knew I could not complain as this trip was being funded by the very person who was visiting with childhood friends. 

One thing I failed to mention was that my friend Claire is a very jealous person and can not be around the same person for a long amount of time before she starts to grow resentful of them. I was unfortunately the target of her resentment throughout this whole trip. My politeness towards her mother, whom I had barely known, and her mother’s natural kindness had led her to believe that her mother loved me more than her. This grew to be a problem a day after we arrived in New York where the two had a fight in a McDonalds in the middle of New York City. Her mother left angrily, and so did she, leaving me all alone in a place I had no clue about and no way to go anywhere else. 

I sat down at one of the tables and ate cold french fries until a couple hours later I was joined by my still simmering friend and then a few minutes later by her upset mother. I stayed quiet the entire time, headphones in and journal out, weathering the storm that was my friend’s family issues. The opening lines of Weyes Blood’s A lot’s Gonna Change comforted me throughout the experience: “If I could go back to a time before now/ Before I ever fell down/ Go back to a time when I was just a girl/ When I had the whole world/ Gently wrapped around me”. At such a tumultuous time between adulthood and adolescence and away from my family across the country, I was feeling shaken, torn, and unstable. A lot of the time between awkward silences and long walks in the New York night time, I envisioned myself alone or in a different world with my own little soundtrack and my little moleskin journal. 

The end of the New York trip signalled peace and petty dalliances were set aside for the sake of making it home in one piece. The flight back to Chicago was standard, if not cramped and apart from getting yelled at by an angry French woman had little else to note. The drive back was miserable—plagued with more long bouts of sleeping and nausea. I arrived home at night and crawled into bed immediately, finally soothing the homesickness I had been experiencing. 

Looking back on the experience now, I can remember both good and bad times that took place in the little bubble that was that trip, and now that my life is vastly different than I had thought it would be back then, I find myself missing it. Now, when I listen to the album that pulled me through the rough patches I think of the swaying subway rides and the rainy night we walked through Yonkers, New York.

The ending to the album Titanic Rising by Weyes Blood ends in an Orchestral arrangement that mirrors the first song in a solemn requiem, and I think it is very fitting to compare the odd mix of feelings I can gather regarding the trip. I do not regret going, and I know that if offered again, I would gladly join. Even the resentment that was directed towards me I would accept. It gave me a new perspective on my friend and even now that we live in different states, we are still very close and I hope to be joining her in Chicago next year.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so after reading that you may be asking "did she ever get to attend school in Chicago". The answer is no. I had applied, got accepted, was awarded the merit scholarship and then covid happened and I was unable to attend. The other problem I had was that I didn't have the money to attend even with the generous merit scholarship. So right now I'm attending community college and taking things slow. I'm currently applying to universities over seas, but with covid-19 and everything, I don't know what will happen. Right now, the world is my oyster though: I'm young, I have very little responsibilities, and despite my declining mental health I'm relatively alright. The future, while daunting, is teeming with possibility.


End file.
